Felix “PewDiePie” Kjelberg has dealt a major blow to YouTube, revealing that he will now start a weekly gaming show on the site’s streaming rival Twitch.
PewDiePie, the owner of YouTube’s most popular channel by a considerable margin with over 53 million subscribers, has branched out to Twitch for the first time in his video-making career amid YouTube’s ongoing advertising issues. With major brands such as PepsiCo and McDonald’s having withdrawn their ads from the site, many of the site’s most prominent users have revealed that their earnings have significantly decreased, leading to widespread panic in the process.
In the wake of this hysteria, PewDiePie has launched his first ever show on YouTube rival Twitch, with his new channel NetGlow producing a weekly gaming show titled ‘Best Club.’ He previously made the announcement in a video titled ‘YOUTUBEISOVERPARTY,’ in which he discussed the effect the so-called YouTube “Adpocalypse” is having on the site’s creators. He said: “Also, I’m going to Twitch now… I decided this before [YouTube’s issues with advertising], so don’t read it the wrong way, but I wanted to start doing streams on Twitch.”
Also: YouTube Advertiser Claims the Site’s Blacklisting “Provocative” Channels and Destroying Their Revenue
While PewDiePie has stated that NetGlow’s creation wasn’t inspired by YouTube’s advertising problems, the timing of its launch could not be better for the site’s content creators. With many YouTubers growing increasingly frustrated by YouTube and its parent company Google, PewDiePie staging a weekly show on Twitch will inevitably draw more eyes to the site, and will likely inspire more video makers to follow suit. Though Twitch is a completely different format, many creators are now looking to diversify their revenue as full-time careers on YouTube are becoming increasingly uncertain, and PewDiePie’s success in bringing a new audience to the streaming site could open up doors for many of his contemporaries.
PewDiePie has launched the Twitch channel NetGlow, which will feature a weekly gaming show.
In a video discussing the ongoing saga surrounding advertisers moving away from YouTube, PewDiePie called the reasoning behind advertisers’ mass exodus “massively overblown.” With ad companies pulling out of the site as a result of their products being advertised on racist videos, he said that it “doesn’t make sense” that all YouTubers should be affected “because of five racist dudes.”
“The reason people love YouTube is that it’s free, it’s open and you can say what you want. It’s not like television,” he said. “But it seems like YouTube is being forced to turn into television at this point. That’s going to be bad for everyone.”
While PewDiePie will still remain on YouTube, him moving to Twitch will be a troubling development for the company, with him having previously created videos exclusively for the Google-owned site. However, a number of high-profile issues with the popular YouTuber has soured their relationship, with the controversy surrounding his anti-Semitic jokes leading to YouTube pulling the second series of his reality show, Scare PewDiePie.
Watch the video in which PewDiePie discusses YouTube’s ad issues below:
You can also watch the first episode of NetGlow’s ‘Best Club’ below:
